Blog Archives

Making Footsteps for disabled children

2/27/2021

The fantastic Footsteps Foundation has been a charity we have given our support to over a number of years.

Based in Dorchester-on-Thames, Footsteps specialises in the intensive rehabilitation of children and young adults with cerebral palsy, genetic disorders, epilepsy and other neurological and neuromotor disorders.

We first supported the foundation back in 2010 when we raised £160 from a charity night. Held at the Bowyer Arms in Radley we helped fund physiotherapy for Sienna Steptoe from Abingdon with cerebral palsy.

Since then the charity, which provides financial assistance to support families with children to access the Footsteps therapy programme has benefited from over £2,130.

We have raised the pounds from a countless number of fundraising activities and events including numerous cake sales, tombolas, discos, raffles, walks, bag packs and more.

In 2019 we also provided Christmas presents to 17 children under their care, as part of toys raised from our "Sleigh2Give" arm that year.

Andy has had the privilege of visiting the Footsteps centre on a couple of occasions in the past meeting some of the incredibly courageous young children and their families. He also got to try out "The Spider" a revolutionary piece of kit that helps in the intensive therapies.

Supporting charities particularly focusing on "children, health and disability" causes links in well with our dedicated support to Footsteps.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support our amazing fundraising organisation. It is only thanks to our local community and all of our supporters who get behind our events, take part in activities, donate money or toys, to helping out their time on stalls and in other ways, that we are able to continue helping the likes of Footsteps and so many other charities and people in need locally.

More about Footsteps Foundation

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Matthew's 650 pounds hair-raising fundraiser

2/20/2021

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Our Community Officer, Matthew Norris, is doing a hair dye and a head shave fundraiser in the hope of raising £650, and in the memory of his late mother who died aged 65 years last November.

The plan to raise £650, to commemorate Angela Norris's 65 years of life, until she passed after complications from terminal lung cancer, will be divided equally between our long-time beneficiary of 14 years, the Oxford Children's Hospital for use in healthcare provision for the wonderful care and treatment of young patients, and the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation for research into treatments for lung cancer.

Once young Matthew raises £325, the halfway point, we will dye his hair completely grey. Once he hits the whopping £650 mark, we will shave his head completely.

Last month, Matt's older brother Luke, who is our Head of Fundraising and Development, undertook a complete (and rather spontaneous) head shave, raising £250 for the Kamran's Ward (the ward that treats children and teens with for cancer) and the British Lung Foundation.

If you would like to support Matt's brilliant fundraising initiative, through which we can support two amazing causes, donate here.

All those who donate over £30 to Matt's hair-raising challenge will receive a Play2Give medal in the post after the fundraiser has ended. Please ensure you e-mail us with your postal details once your donation has been processed.

Thank you for all your support, and our good luck to Matt for such a special tribute to a wonderful lady who is very much missed by all of us. Angela was a dedicated supporter of ours over so many years. A collection at her funeral raised £300 for Play2Give going directly to support medical care, top of the range equipment and research at the Oxford Children's Hospital.

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400 pounds donated to Be Free Young Carers in 2020

2/20/2021

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At Play2Give one of our charities we support is the brilliant Be Free Young Carers, based in Harwell.

In 2020 thanks to our fundraising and your generosity we provided two financial donations totalling £400 to the charity which supports young carers in South Oxfordshire.

Funds, including an enormously generous £250 donated by our friends at Draycott Engineering
last August went towards funding Covid-19 telephone and online befriending support, online activities for wellbeing and food parcels to the most needs families under their service.

We have also provided thousands of Christmas presents worth thousands of £'s to the young carers and their families for the past three years as part of donations raised by our annual "Sleigh2Give" festive campaign.

In December Andy along with our proud Patron, David Johnston OBE, MP for Wantage and Didcot, delivered sacks load of toys and presents for the young carers particularly the over-eights at the request of the charity, to their HQ, where John Tabor the director met and greeted them to the amazing haul distributed.

Sabiene North, events and fundraising officer, wrote: "I have worked with Andy for the last year but he has been a long time supporter of Be Free Young Carers (BFYC). Every year he helps BFYC with Play2Give's Sleigh2Give toy collection in the community, which we then distribute to our young carers and their families. He is a huge community supporter of not just our charity but other charities across Oxfordshire. He is a very much valued member of the community and well known fundraiser throughout Oxfordshire."

For Andy, P2G supporting BFYC is one with close personal connection.

Andy was a young carer growing up since a very young age to his Mum, Ann, who was left with devastating life-long disabilities from a RTA over 36 years ago. He continues to this day to be her main carer. So continually giving back to BFYC both financially and in the spirit of presents at Christmas means so much to Andy.

We are very proud to help and support the wonderful Be Free Young Carers, who currently have a wonderful "Laptops for Young Carers" campaign running, launched in January, and it has been a huge joy to donate financially to help support this more than ever important scheme with the home schooling going on and many families being unable to afford a laptop to work from.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support our amazing fundraising organisation.

It is only thanks to our local community and all of our supporters who get behind our events, take part in activities, donate money or toys, to helping out their time on stalls and in other ways, that we are able to continue helping the likes of BFYC and so many other charities and people in need locally."

"Changing transforming and saving lives across Oxfordshire and in cases wider afield" is our mission statement and since we was founded in September 2007 we have gone on to help nearly 30 causes including some special individual children with disabilities, in 14 years.

We have raised over £280,000 to date for good causes.

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Thomas's 20-miles lockdown cycle ride

2/18/2021

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Today we say "thank you" to our founder's nephew, Thomas Churchward who is using pedal power to raise money.

Thomas from Didcot, and who works at the Fleur De Lys in East Hagbourne, is the eldest nephew of our founder and chief, Andy Baker.

Thomas wanted to do something energetic to keep fit during the current lockdown and so after having a think decided to put his love of love going biking to good use and raise money for his youngest uncle's charity in the process.

Today Thomas embarks upon a 20-mile cycle ride, which he will take on for five days. He will complete day five on Tuesday, as on Saturday he takes a day off to continue his volunteering as a Marshall for the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out at Didcot Civic Hall.

He set a goal of raising £100 for Play2Give and he has already received over £80 in sponsorship.

To read more about Thomas's cycling effort, visit his donation page.

All the money raised from Thomas's cycle ride helps us to continue supporting local charities including Oxford Children's Hospital and brain injury organisation, Headway Oxfordshire, amongst other good causes.

Thomas keep pedalling and good luck!

A very big thank you to Thomas and to all of our amazing supporters, local community, businesses and our dedicated volunteers who all help us in "changing transforming and saving lives across Oxfordshire" all year round.

Already we have raised over £600 for 2021, which is a brilliant start to our new year of fundraising, so every penny and pound donated and all support really does make a real difference to the lives of many.

Would you like to take on a sponsored challenge? Perhaps you might like to do some fitness or a healthy keep fit challenge to keep up your vital exercise to good wellbeing during lockdown? Please contact us if you would like to take on any form of fundraising, we would be delighted to have your support.

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Play2Give makes "Best Not for Profit" final five

2/2/2021

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Play2Give makes the final five up for a Little Ankle Biters Oxfordshire Award!

We are chuffed and excited beyond words to find out today that we are a Finalist in the Little Ankle Biters Oxfordshire Awards for 2021.

After the astonishing number of nominations that was received for Play2Give in the initial nominations round, which closed on Friday, we are now delighted to be a finalist after making the top five put forward for the final round of voting.

We are shortlisted in the "Best Not for Profit/Charity" category, in with four other deserving local causes.

Now, we need your help again!

The final round of voting is now open, and entries will close at 23.59pm on February 28th.

The overall winner of all 17 awards including "Best Not for Profit" will be announced shortly after.

To cast your vote please visit the awards website

For us at Play2Give as a small group of dedicated volunteers it is a true honour to be recognised by the community's votes in this way, and now you can help us to potentially win the final round by taking less than a minute to record your vote.

We are proud and extremely humbled, as a fundraising organisation that just continues to go from strength to strength in our invaluable work in "changing, transforming and saving lives across Oxfordshire".

Good luck to all the finalists, and in our category we are in amongst some amazing contenders who are all doing incredible work to help others.

Thank you for the continued support, and we keep our fingers crossed.

#LABOawards

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A Close Shave for Luke!

2/1/2021

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It was a case of hair today, gone tomorrow for a member of our very own team, who boldly went the extra mile and is now sporting a head as smooth as a baby's bottom.

Our very own Luke Norris, our Head of Fundraising and Development, spent his Saturday afternoon off today (January 30th) going a smooth head for Play2Give.

And, we are delighted that he has smashed his £200 target but he would love to raise even more.

His sponsorship page

The money raised has kick started our 14th year of fundraising off, and will be split between the Oxford Children's Hospital and the British Lung Foundation.

Well done Luke, we think it is a top job done!

And his bald head hasn't been for fun, but all in honour of his Mam, Angela, as well as doing away with his "lockdown" mop, which is how the idea originated spontaneously. We know for sure, with P2G being such a close cause to her heart, that she would be very proud of Luke!

As Luke's page remains open for 3 weeks we hope some more donations will continue to roll in as the more Luke's "hair raising" fundraising raises the more money that will go to benefit the children in the hospital including those young patients facing treatment for cancer and for research into lung disease.

Angela sadly passed away last November after a brave fight with stage four lung cancer.

Below are all the pictures from Luke's close shave.

Your money and support always continually changes transforms and saves lives across Oxfordshire, and wider afield, and so as ever a very big thank you to all of our supporters and our fundraisers, like Luke!